A slight case of Misunderstanding
by Taleya
Summary: Kmeme prompt! Watson is in love, Holmes is an ass and Watson throws a snit. No particular verse, but my heart is forever StrandyBrett.


A Slight Case of Misunderstanding 

By Taleya

It was a surprisingly cheery morning for a London winter as I sat at the table in front of the bow window. Mrs. Hudson had assembled a delightful breakfast to match the day – bacon, eggs, and a fine piece of haddock in addition to the usual assortment of toast and fruits. My good mood could not even be darkened by the stack of _Strand_ magazines beside the basket chair – evidently Holmes had been delving through my publications again, no doubt snorting derisively at my fancies with each turn of a page. He could not seem to let them lie, constantly decrying my efforts as sensationalised dramas rather than educational essays into his deductive methods, and yet more than once I have caught him pawing eagerly through a new issue the instant it arrived from my publishers.

The man himself arrived soon after, attired in shirtsleeves and trousers, his dressing gown thrown carelessly over his shoulders. He detoured briefly on his way to take a magazine from the stack beside the basket chair, then sat himself down opposite me, the tome resting meaningfully on the table between us.

I refused to rise to the bait, pointedly serving myself another portion of eggs. "Do try the ham, Holmes. Mrs. Hudson has outdone herself."

Holmes raised a desultory brow at the serving dish, then poured himself a cup of tea. He ignored the waiting stack of papers, his hand returning instead to tap lightly at the magazine on the table. "I spent an entertaining night reading through your epistles to _The Strand, _" he began lightly, sipping at his tea.

I salted my eggs. "Did you enjoy yourself?"

"Somewhat. It was quite…illuminating." He set his cup back down, oddly eager to talk. Holmes in the morning is not the most loquacious of men. If he is not set upon a case, he prefers to punctuate the morning with snarls for coffee and snide remarks upon our poor housekeeper's cooking skills. More than once I have wondered how much restraint the dear woman must have not to simply upend the soup tureen on his head when he is in one of his moods. "I have noticed some…creative editing on your behalf?" his voice rose lazily at the end, turning it into a question.

"Such as?"

He tapped the magazine again. "I noticed for instance, that in 'The Adventure of the Speckled Band' you have me proclaiming the highly melodramatic phrase "The band, the speckled band!" upon our discovery of that dreadful wretch Roylott. If I recall correctly, those were not the words I uttered. "

"Well, no." I scraped more eggs onto my fork. "That's because your actual exclamation of "BLOODY HELL" would not have made it into publication. At least, not the sort of publications I submit to."

"Ah." His hand tapped the magazine again in thought. "I do have some other questions - that is, if you will permit me?" It was phrased as a question, but I knew it was an invitation to be coaxed. Holmes is oddly vain and delights in an audience to the processes of his unique mind.

I hastily swallowed my eggs and dabbed at my moustache with a napkin. "I am always at your service, my dear fellow!" I gestured eagerly to the magazine and tucked my chair a little closer to the table. It is always a delight for a writer to discuss their work in a serious fashion, and I am no exception. I do not claim my penned diversions to be high art, but I am as always interested in the opinions of the reader. The chance to hear from a mind as magnificent as my friends was too good an opportunity to pass by and I was eager to hear his unique views upon the subject.

"How long have you been in love with me?"

The question came as suddenly and unexpectedly as a bolt of lightning from the clear blue sky and I dropped my knife in sheer panic. I hastily recovered it, almost knocking over my Darjeeling as a result and fussed absently with the table, placing salt shaker, cruet and toast holder in a nervously ordered row before me, as if to afford some measure of protection. "I have no idea what you're talking about."

I am a very poor bluffer, something Holmes is well aware of. Thankfully he did not remark upon it on this occasion, moving instead to delicately shake out his napkin and place it across his lap. One elbow rested on the edge of the table, fingers hovering near his lips as he looked at me, a slight smile on his face. "The evidence is somewhat damning, my dear Watson," he said reproachfully. "To begin with, you seem to have a delightedly perverse obsession with my hands. In your fancifully titled 'A study in Scarlet' you make a marked and specific note upon them – and in subsequent stories have dedicated veritable *reams* of text to describing every nuance and motion. In describing my visage you eschew such apt words as 'beaky' or 'vampiric', dismissing the pejoratives and instead using your pen to invoke far more complimentary phrases such as 'hawk-like' or 'austere'. My dress is impeccably described; you have adoringly noted every article of clothing that has ever garbed my body - if only you would apply such observational skills to our cases! - my every word treated like the wisest mandates of a Buddha."

I sat there, white-faced throughout his dissection, my hands gripping my knife and fork with reddened knuckles. This was appalling. Had I really been so transparent?

My panic must have translated to my expression, for Holmes swiftly moved to reassure me. "Buried as they are in your fanciful prose, the descriptions merely serve to be observations of an admiring and ardent friend. But to one accustomed to noting what is unsaid as well as said, my dear Watson, the signs are plain as day."

He continued to note events from my writings, ticking them off one by one on his long, damnably elegant fingers, quoting at times whole paragraphs of text while I stared at my plate, my appetite suddenly gone, feeling my ears redden more and more with every damning syllable. He paused once, and I looked up in brief hope of an end to this torment, but it was merely to light a cigarette, exhaling slowly before continuing.

"With your pen you have made love to my every feature, worshipped me like a fine painting, extolled the virtues of my intellect, the adroitness of my violin playing - even my quirks and flaws are lovingly detailed with fond remembrance." Those damned implacable grey eyes watched me through the smoke, dancing with mirth. No. Not mirth, I realized dimly through the shock. _Mockery._ "In short: you have acted every inch the love-sick swain, and displayed your epistles for the world to see."

My shock was transmuting rapidly from shame into anger and in that single moment, I think I actually hated him. It was true - every word of it. Over our mutual acquaintance Holmes had moved from a subject of admiration to an obsession, and finally, I had admitted to myself - an object of desire. No, not desire, as the word tended to lean too shabbily towards baser emotions. Love.

It was a word I scarcely dared to admit to myself. I had spent long nights wrestling with this concept. Please, do not mistake me - I have experienced many lovers on three continents, and have both loved and been loved, but never like this. Never had I fallen so completely, my attention, my soul, my everything fixed upon a single person, as if they were the very air I needed to breathe. Never had a man made me feel this way before – nor a woman, to tell the truth. I had wrestled many sleepless nights with my heart and my conscience, and I had finally capitulated to both, admitting that these feelings had transmuted so deeply within my soul. I was mad with love, madder than Carruthers had been, madder than Orpheus for his sweet Eurydice and yet content simply to be near him, to bask in his presence. This was all I would ever have, and I was content with it, far more content that I had ever believed I could be.

And here he was, sitting calmly at the table opposite, a cup of tea steaming at his elbow as he mockingly tore my hard-won and hard-realised feelings apart.

I deliberately placed my knife and fork upon the table and pulled the napkin from my collar. Clearing my throat, I tossed it onto my plate and rose to my feet. "I have never heard such arrant nonsense in my life." There was a danger in my voice, no matter how hard I tried to control it. "Good day, Holmes."

His face shifted subtly, changing from merriment to concern, as if he were aware he had finally stepped too far. "My dear Watson - "

"Good. Day." I ground the words out and fled.

* * * *

I must have looked quite the sight, roaming the streets of London with neither cuffs, hat nor coat but I was too livid to care. For all my protestations and Scottish blood, I am a remarkably affable fellow, if I say so myself. My temper is not easy to rise, and once it has it can dissipate in the flash of a heartbeat. However, in these circumstances it seemed not to erase itself, but accumulate and glower like a bank of coals. It is one thing to realise emotions for oneself, it is quite another to have them painstakingly dissected and laid before you as an intellectual exercise.

Holmes, it seemed to me, had finally done the unforgivable. I had tolerated a great deal from that man: constant interruptions to my sleep, the peremptorial demands upon my time, his frankly perverse habits and utter disregard for anyone who was not himself. It may sound a harsh criticism, but I was quite incensed at him, an emotional state which served to exaggerate his smallest flaws to horrendous magnitude. It seemed he was right after all for his disdainful affectation towards softer emotions; they were indeed fleeting and soured all too readily.

I had not deluded myself at any point as to Holmes' feelings towards me. I was a biographer, a stalwart companion, a friend to him and no more. But I had never conceived that he could treat a friend so cruelly, that he could take a perverse delight in mockery of something so private and dear to me. For all his social ineptness, he could be quite charming at times and I had let that lead me to believe he held some modicum of tact and decency. How very wrong I was!

If my anger had been focused solely at Holmes, I think I would have forgiven him rather readily. He is not a usual man - if he were I do not think my feelings would have developed as they had. He is a unique mind; honed and forged, a calculating, reasoning engine and I think at times the passionate and romantic machinations of this strange human existence must at times be as baffling and exotic to him as his mind is to the world. But much of my anger was aimed towards myself. Holmes had been right, damn him. I had acted the love-sick swain, turned myself into a fawning puppy, the kind who would secretly make doe-eyes via the silvered coffee-pot and creep down the stairs to listen covertly to him playing the violin in the dead of night.

It was maddeningly unmanning to admit. What would be next? Invitations to a stroll about the garden? Greeting him with a green carnation in my buttonhole? Composing reams upon reams of badly-written poetry, to be read to him while I knelt beside his chair, my face turned adoringly to his? Or perhaps simply afternoon matinees, reading his papers out loud to him and pampering his monumental ego at every turn.

My angry feet had taken me clear across New road, and I found myself beside Paddington Gardens. I threw myself into a bench and scowled at the greenery. There was a bite to the air, but I ignored it, allowing my anger to keep me warm. With every blink of my eye I saw Holmes' face, that small, delicate smile hiding gently on his features through the cigarette smoke, thin lips moving over words of my own composition. I could not stop the visions, swallowing each like a bitter gall and wormwood cocktail and with every sip my anger refreshed itself anew.

I am ashamed to say I worked myself into quite a state, until I was no longer completely sure what I was angry at - Holmes, myself, or the fates that had conspired to throw us together so many years ago. I am not sure how long I sat there, but I was finally roused by the bells of the nearby church and realised that I had spent several hours sulking like a petulant child. The cold had eaten into my old wound, inflicted in Afghanistan by a Jezail bullet and I had a sudden longing for the warmth of our cosy parlour in Baker Street. Holmes would be there, no doubt...but I could I felt at last, tolerate that. Provided he no longer continued our previous conversation, I could ignore him with some aplomb, and concentrate instead on my writings of...

Damn and blast it. I nearly turned away from Baker street in annoyance. But I was a grown man, and a military one at that - and I would not be chased from my home by an arrogant snot, no matter how much I loved him, even now.

I raised my head high and let the anger sweep me home, up the seventeen steps and into 221B Baker Street.

***

Holmes was decidedly conspicuous by his absence and I felt a brief surge of irritation at the fact he couldn't even be present for a proper row. However, that was probably for the best, all things considered.

Mrs. Hudson had laid on a cheery fire and I warmed myself beside it for some time, taking a simple pleasure at the heat it extruded.

I noticed there was a fine bottle of port on my desk, a rather clumsy ribbon tied about its neck. Next to it lay two tickets to an afternoon performance by Culmbach, a violin player of some note that I had expressed interest in seeing. Holmes is an ardent admirer of German compositions and players, and the blissful contentment that suffuses his features at seeing it performed overwhelms the severity of his features, transforming him into an almost ethereal beauty. It's utterly breathtaking to behold, and in those moments, and at that sight I could forgive him anything.

No doubt that was the intention.

I snorted rudely and had a brief childish urge to toss them into the fireplace, but it would have been a decidedly cruel gesture to inflict on such a fine vintage to begin with. Instead, I left them where they were and made my way to the sideboard for a stiff whisky.

The stack of _Strand_ magazines was still beside the basket chair. I picked one up and stared moodily at the sketched cover. Flicking through the pages, I felt my lip curling in both scorn and shame as my own words flew past me, adoring, adulating, utterly blind and rampantly stupid.

_...I had no idea that such individuals exist outside of stories..._

In a fit of pique I tossed it into the grate. Let the flames make what they would of The Great Detective! Jackass of London! Maddening Pain In My Backside!

Draining my whisky, I snatched up the tickets. No doubt I was to attend the concert with Holmes. Luncheon and a show, all for an afternoon of sweet violin playing whereupon all would be forgiven. I snorted again and put my glass down squarely on one of his monographs. Smoothing back my hair in a sudden, devilish decision, I made my way down the stairs and knocked on Mrs. Hudson's door.

It took her a small while to answer, peering a little nervously around the door. I had no doubt that Holmes had taken his unexpectedly ill-received notions out on her in my absence. She is a hard put-upon woman and certainly deserved a treat far more than Holmes did at the moment.

"Doctor Watson?"

"My dear Mrs. Hudson!" I bowed low and offered her my arm. "I have two tickets to a violinist this afternoon - a man of great skill, if the papers are to be believed. It seems I have one more than is required - would you do me the great honour of accompanying me?"

I am a man who possesses no small amount of charisma when it comes to the ladies, and Mrs. Hudson was not immune to my charms. Her hand came up unconsciously to pat at the back of her bun, the other hand smoothing down the front of her dress.

"But Doctor Watson, surely Mister Holmes - "

"Mister Holmes is a bounder, a cad, and an utter - " I cut myself short and apologised. "Mister Holmes was no doubt planning to attend with me and my tickets. However, I find at this moment in time I am utterly disinclined to his company. Perhaps he may learn that social events are reserved for those with at least the barest of social graces."

A small smile tweaked her cheek at that. As unutterably fond as she is of my friend, her patience is at times sorely tried by his antics. It must have been quite the treat to pull such a jape on him in turn.

She agreed to accompany me, and I hurried back to the parlour to fetch my billfold. A quiet lunch in a respectable establishment, followed by some fine music and not a single raven-haired detective to vex me sounded the veritable definition of heaven - even if my companion was my rather elderly housekeeper.

On the way past I dropped the port into the waste basket besides Holmes' chemical lab.

***

The luncheon was hearty, the performance superb. Mrs. Hudson was an astonishingly good companion, and once we had muddled part the odd social blunder of inviting my housekeeper out for a meal, we had a wonderful time. I coerced her into joining me for a sherry afterwards, proprietary be damned and I'm afraid we were quite merry as we tripped up the stairs to Baker Street.

Judging by the foul stench wafting under the parlour door, Holmes had returned in our absence and consumed a great deal of shag. Since the door was not flung open, and he was not bellowing like a moose for me the instant we came home, I suspected it was not a case that drew his attention to the pipe, but the discovery of the missing tickets. I must confess, I felt a mean sort of pleasure at his imagined disappointment when he came back to find them gone.

Hanging my coat and hat, I bid Mrs. Hudson a fond farewell and faced the door. I was, to be honest, sorely tempted to simply turn up the stairwell and head for my cosy garret, but I have learned over the years that to sleep upon angry thoughts only prompts dissatisfaction the next day.

The gas was low in the parlour, but not so low that I found discomfort in navigating the cluttered room. Holmes was perched on his seat by the fire, knees drawn up to his chest and arms wrapped about them. His violin lay carelessly on the floor beside him, his pipe smoking lazily on the side table. The bottle of port was somewhat precariously balanced in the space between his chest and knee, sheltered by his body, the ribbon looking far worse for wear. It was an oddly pathetic sight.

Leaning forward, I plucked the bottle from the crook of his chest and placed it beside his pipe. He stirred a little at that, although his long arms remained looped around his knees.

"I am glad you have returned, Watson." His tone was soft and oddly tentative, a strange facet from a man so masterful. "I do not have so many friends that I can afford to lose one over so paltry a matter." His gaze never stirred from the fire, the light from the flames licking strange angles upon his face. "Did you enjoy the performance? I assumed from the lack of refreshment mid-afternoon that you had taken our esteemed landlady with you."

"Indeed. Culmbach's performance was utterly sublime." It was a crude dig, but I derived a small satisfaction from it having noted the word _paltry_. "We both enjoyed ourselves immensely."

"Alas! How soon I have been replaced in your heart." The tone was gently mocking, delivered with his customary dry humour, and had I heard it on the morrow, or even the day after I would most likely have laughed. But the wounds from the morning were still too fresh, and I was simply too tired with the whole debacle to continue further.

I made my way to the sideboard and made use of both the whisky bottle and gasogene, pouring myself a generous dram. I drained the glass, and it made a small, deliberate clinking noise as I placed it on the wooden surface. Taking a deep breath, I held it for a moment before releasing it in a single, explosive exhalation and straightening my shoulders, turning to face him.

"Yes, I am in love with you," my tone was remarkably steady I thought, considering the circumstances. "Disgustingly so. Besotted is no doubt the word *you* would use, but I would not. I do not love you in the manner of Oscar Wilde and his disastrously purple prose, nor in the manner of those louche green-carnation-wearing lads, or in the way of a feckless, freckle-faced youth pining over the local milkmaid, gasping her name as his hand strays to touch himself in the middle of a lush field." I saw his eyes widen, his lips part around some word at that and surged forward, determined to say my piece. If I was to be damned, then I would be damned by my own doing. "I will not pine at your door, nor swan about the place with my dressing gown so carefully arranged in a sense of _déshabillé_. You needn't fear coming home one night to find me artfully displayed upon your bed with a wanton eye. These things would be of utterly no use to you, nor to me.

"I know you don't love me in return. You could no more love me than any other man - or woman, come to think of it. You are simply incapable of it." He seemed to shrink a little at that, the shadows deepening upon his face - or perhaps it was merely my own fancy. Nevertheless, I softened my tone, giving in to the sudden, foolhardy urge to place a hand on his lean shoulder. "It matters very little to me, Holmes. I love you regardless."

He sprang a little in his seat at my touch, one long leg touching the floor, the other under his chin as he twisted, fingertips tilting on the back of the chair. "Perhaps that is the cause of your desire," he snapped, resembling nothing more than a giant spider as he crouched upon the chair. "Am I some unassailable Galatea to you, Watson? A distant, untouchable sculpture that it is safe to love simply because there is no fear of it returning your affections?"

"You are Sherlock Holmes," I replied simply. "An owner of a mind so great that it has left no room for the passions of man. With no room for injustice, for bigotry, for the million and one petty prejudices that fill the thoughts and heart of any other. A man who will eschew the petty matters of Lords and Kings to heed the desperate cries of the worker or governess. A man who has honed himself into a machine by design, who has refined his god-given skills to the cost of all else, simply for the thrill of the mind, to see justice done in a world where so many seem content to let things lie in an absent stupor."

He was silent a long moment. It was most likely a trick of the gas, but the firelight seemed to glint oddly in his eyes. His face shifted in strange, unique motions, as if he were trying to process an alien thought - or perhaps I had in some strange way touched the heart that I knew he did not possess.

"You are a romantic fool, Watson," he whispered.

"If I am a fool, Holmes, then rest assured I am not a blind one. I am a fool who is well aware of his foolishness." My momentum was spent, and my emotions with it. "Goodnight, Holmes - and I'll thank you to speak no more of the matter. I hope I have, at least, earned that small dignity with my years of service." 

I was halfway to the door when there was a soft, almost tender murmur, barely discernable above the muted crackle of the fire. "Your features, and especially your eyes."

I instantly stilled at the words. I recognised them. I *wrote* them.

To this day, reading back upon my recollections, I am still not sure how I divined the meaning from a nonsensical quote of my own text, taken out of context. Perhaps it was fate or Kismet that had brought our minds on parallel tracks. Perhaps it was the fact I had regrettably partaken of far too much alcohol of late. Perhaps it was mere fancy. Perhaps it was a comfortable familiarity of our long acquaintance. Or perhaps it was simply the pitch, the timbre of his voice as he uttered those words, the sound so small, so delicate, but an undercurrent of devotion carrying them through the room.

Upon reflection, it was most likely the latter- for Sherlock Holmes is a man who says exactly what he means and does precisely what he likes.

Time seemed to slow in that instant, and yet at the same time accelerate. My mind reeled in confusion and yet at the same time seemed to focus, far more than I thought capable. I remember noting the tiny ash mark on the curtains, the smears on the sideboard from my hasty drink-making. I could see a corner of the Strand still in the grate, the rest of the magazine devoured by the flames. I could see everything, note everything, regardless of how small in consequence in that single second it took me an eternity to turn.

Holmes was still crouched over the back of his chair, framed by the firelight, one arm now draped along the back, the other tilted at the elbow, a fingers tented in his hair, an infuriatingly lazy smile on his face.

"Holmes...."

"I thank that I must turn to you for something more solid." He rose slowly from the chair, impossibly elegant, graceful limbs moving in the soft light until he was standing before me, those grey eyes focused on me, solely on me, imparting a message far more important than mere words. "I would be lost without my Boswell."

My mind was spinning. My heart stuttered once in my chest and I reached out wildly to clutch the sideboard. It was wonderful and terrifying and completely at once unbelievable. All I could say was his name, over and over. "Oh _Holmes._"

He reached out his hand, fingers curled as if to touch my cheek, his fingers barely ghosting by my features, sculpting me anew in the air. "You see, but you do not observe," he chided in a whisper. "You have spent so many years noting my every gesture, every word, and every glance and yet missed the most obvious clue of all." He pulled his hand back and I keenly felt its loss.

Perhaps I had drunk far too much, and was passed out on the settee. Perhaps I had gone mad. If I had, it was a madness surely gifted by God himself. Perhaps I was dead. All of these seemed more real to me than the fact that Sherlock Holmes was standing before me, so close that I had to look up to see his features, his long, devilishly elegant fingers reaching down to tangle with mine, drawing my hand up to rest against his breast.

"I am, as well you know, of very great brain. But I am not without some small measure of heart." A smile brushed his thin lips, heartbreaking in its brevity. "It is very small, and a somewhat paltry offering, oftentimes composed of stone, but it is yours. Even if you are an easily-offended old fool." 

He did indeed have a heart after all. I could feel it beating beneath the strong chest, trembling against my fingers. Reaching out with my other hand, I let it touch his temple, move back into his sleek, black hair. It felt like some hidden spring had uncoiled inside me at the motion, a long-denied urge to pet and stroke Holmes like the giant cat he so often reminded me of finally satisfied.

"Arrogant donkey," I said fondly.

"Besotted old invert," he shot back, hands moving to push my jacket from my shoulders.

"Automaton." Another smile briefed his lips at that, the corners of his eyes creasing slightly, chin lifting a little in merriment.

"Histrionic."

"I beg your pardon?" My hand was still buried in that sleek of hair, stroking, touching. I would not have stopped for the world.

"You stole my tickets in a fit of pique," he pointed out, hands moving to run boldly down the front of my waistcoat, dipping in and out between the buttons, undoing them one by one. "And threw my token of apology into the waste-basket. Not to mention burning your _Strand_."

"You quite ruined my appetite. I was enjoying those eggs. And you are still a monumental bounder." I reluctantly pulled my hand from his hair, allowing my jacket to fall free to the floor. My hands returned to grasp his hips firmly, reassuring myself he was here, that this was real. He no doubt read my need in my features - especially my eyes - and rested his own on my waist, gazing fondly down at me from his greater height.

For a long moment we simply stared at each other, bemused by the realisation of what a pair of fools we were. Holmes was still a monumental jackass, but I was beginning to hope in the base of my heart that with time he might be considered _my_ jackass. Observed from this close, his eyes were a magnificent shade of grey, darkened somewhat like the portent of stormy weather. He drew me away from the door, and down by the fire.

Whatever I had expected to happen next, I had not expected his long white hand to pluck the port bottle from the side table and present it to me. Nor did I expect him to throw himself carelessly down by the grate, tossing me a pen-knife to open it with. With our world, our friendship, the very core of our acquaintance shifting and melding around us, we actually sat there upon the rug and drank port.

Holmes could not stop staring at me throughout, a smile darting elusively about his lips. I would look one moment to see it there, and then in the next it was gone, like an errant child playing hide-and-seek. I nursed my port, having drunk far too much already over the course of the day, while Holmes drank his first glass as if it were water, before stopping to savour the second. Out of deference to my old wound, he had plied me with cushions from the settee; I'm afraid the chivalrous gesture was somewhat wasted as by this point I was fairly well insulated by the alcohol. I was seated Indian-style, the warmth of the fire casting over my right shoulder while Holmes was all impossibly lean angles, one leg crooked under himself, the other bent at the knee, a long arm leaning over it in a carefree manner. His collar was undone, a few scant buttons revealing a most enticing stripe of flesh.

Holmes looked at me for a moment, then away, towards the fire in a strangely shy gesture that was at once immense endearing. A word seemed to hover on his lips, only to vanish, then to re-appear.

"Arrogant Donkey?" he finally said, looking at me reproachfully.

I'm afraid I snorted at that, almost knocking the bottle over onto the rug. For all the thoughts to plague him so, a comparison to an uppity _equidae_ was the first he spoke of. But my humour did serve one purpose, as Holmes' slightly hurt façade eased into a far more generous mien of amusement.

"Arrogance is a flaw, dear Watson - " how I thrilled to the new tone in his voice at that oft-heard affectation, even as he stole the port bottle from my hand " - and as you know, I have none."

I felt a wild sort of laughter bubbling in the back of my throat as I hastened to sooth his ruffled feathers. "Rest assured my friend, you may be an ass, but you are at the very least, the greatest ass in all of London. You strive to achieve no less in your assery than you do in all other pursuits."

"I should certainly hope so," he sniffed, and turned back to the port, rotating the bottle around and around in his palms, tweaking at the ribbon. He was silent for a long moment, and so was I, happily mesmerized by the site of those clever hands playing with the smooth glass.

"I must confess," he said eventually, "that if I should drink another portion of this I will be forced to press my intentions upon you in a particularly devastating manner."

Even when drunk he was ridiculously, endearingly verbose. I smothered another snort of laughter before replying in a like manner. "My dear fellow, between the whisky, the sherry, and this astonishingly good port, I am afraid that I myself am but a hair away from completely losing my sensibilities as a gentleman and ravishing you in a most filthy manner right here on the rug."

A delightful blush spread across his high cheekbones at that - I believe that this was the first time he had ever heard me speak in such a manner. The colour was most becoming on his face, spreading in a pleasing manner down the hollow of his throat to disappear under his collar. I had the most obscene urge to follow it to see how far down it went. Instead, I rocked forward in my seat and pressed a soft, inoffensive kiss to his cheek.

"There." I said in satisfaction.

He gave me a look of utter disbelief. It nearly sent me into hysterics, but I managed to contain them, chortling merrily at his abject confusion.

"I have very little knowledge of the realms of romance," he said slowly. "But for a man who claims to have had lovers in three continents, I must confess I find myself...disappointed."

"The first kiss must always be chaste." I reminded him. "It must be gentle, it must be refined. It should not be passionate, nor vulgar."

"Ahh…" His eyes twinkled at me in the firelight. "And the second?"

"Well it has been some time since I have familiarised myself with the works of Mrs. Humphrey, but I believe it runs along the lines of the first." I rocked forward again and repeated the kiss on his left cheek to complete the formalities. He tilted into it the second time, eyes lidding a little in a delightful gesture before slowly opening to focus upon me once more.

"And the third?"

"Well, I'm afraid if the third happens so rapidly proceeding the first and second then we are in danger of tipping into the realms of debauchery."

A smile crept across his face, one I did not think him capable of. Slow, lazy, he resembled nothing more than a louche lothario contemplating a new conquest. It was more than I could stand after so long, and I all but threw myself at him, knocking cushions flying and grasping huge fistfuls of his shirt.

The kiss was not chaste. It was not refined. It was hard, and it was sloppy, and I'm afraid my moustache very well may have caught in his teeth at one point but it was very much from my heart, as drunken as it was. He resembled nothing more than a stunned fish at the beginning, then heartily reciprocated, one hand grasping my hip and kneading it between his ridiculously long and delightful fingers.

I cupped his face between my hands, then moved them to his shoulders. Then our hands were everywhere, tearing at each other's clothing as the frustrations of the past day - indeed, the past several years - finally found an outlet. I'm afraid I did quite a large amount of damage to his fine waistcoat, and his tailor will no doubt wish to have strong words with me for what I did to the fastenings of his trousers, but such things will happen. Especially when one has been waiting for so long to unwrap a particular present.

Licked by firelight, Holmes resembled nothing more than the epitome of the sculptor's art, his naked form dancing the thin line between slim and emaciated. Every muscle on his body was delicately outlined but soundly fashioned, pale skin wrapped over all like the finest of Greek _kouroi_. The elegant promise of his hands and motions and the few glimpses I had caught of his body when tending to injuries was indeed fulfilled throughout, from the delicate span of his collarbone to the strong, lithe muscles of his calves. I sat back on my haunches, content merely to gaze upon him.

He returned the gaze with frank appraisal, and I wondered what he made of me. While I have broadened a little since the days of my youth, I have maintained myself quite well; our various adventures have assisted quite admirably in this endeavour over the years. I had picked up a few scars along the years, but they were not so terrible that I had developed a self-conscious manner about them - indeed, I wore them with some small measure of pride that each and every one had been received in the course of duties of worth. And judging by the look in his eyes, my form was found laudable indeed.

His fingers - those damnably elegant, devilish, long, white hypnotic fingers - reached out and brushed lightly against the slight dusting of hair on my stomach, then swept up to move over my chest, my collarbone, tracing the curve of my shoulders, toying briefly with the dip of the sternoclavicular joint before moving to follow the hair at my breast down to my pubis. I envied him a little in his boldness; each motion not harried nor hesitant, but slow and certain, a self-confident master in this as in all things. I tried to emulate him, to be less self-conscious, but I'm afraid it must have seemed terribly clumsy in comparison.

Perhaps there was some truth to his accusation after all. With Holmes a remote figure, to love him seemed safe, comfortable, like a well-worn pair of slippers that had warmed by the fire. With Holmes in front of me, underneath me, touching me and being touched I felt a wild sense of an emotion entirely too akin to terror. I had never lain with a man; there were of course experiences in boarding school and later in the army - men have needs, after all, and I had never found myself wanting for companionship - but they were the sort of small, inconsequential acts a man may perform alone, if not in as satisfying manner as with a willing partner. How was I to react? To move? I could not act as I would with a woman, to do so would demean my great friend in an abominable manner.

With a snort that sounded suspiciously like "_Pygmalion,_" Holmes grasped my hand, placing it firmly on his hip. "I am here Watson. I am real. Here, you have me beneath your hand - am I not flesh and bone?"

My hand shifted downwards and indeed, I did have him beneath my hand. I gave his member a long, deliberate stroke, a little shocked with my own daring and he arched below me in an impossibly long movement. I watched in fascination as the muscles either side of his throat contracted with the motion, then relaxed. I leaned forward to taste, nipping gently along the hollow of his throat at first, then with increasing passion. He tasted of smoke and port and brilliance and _home_, and all at once I could not have enough of him. One hand pressed to the back of my head, fingers tangling in my hair, the other clutching at my thigh, strong fingers leaving heated marks in my flesh. That hand moved up to grasp my buttock, kneading it and I fell forward completely with a groan, supported by my elbows either side of him, pressing my chest to his, my groin to his, straddling him.

Strong teeth nipped gently at my ear and I felt my eyes roll a little at the motion. My ears have always been sensitive - a fact I have no doubt that Holmes has noted. The small hurt was immediately soothed by the tip of a damnably talented tongue, tracing the inner lines of my scapha and up into the helix. I pushed against him at that, and his thighs slid open, allowing my member to slide through the gap formed.

I drove myself slowly through the juncture of his thighs, relishing in the feel of flesh on flesh. I could feel his member move against mine; his hands on my back, mine on his shoulders. With every motion the expanse of his chest and stomach shifted beneath me, and I was lost for words to describe the beauty of that pale anatomical model in action. Marble. Finest china. I could have composed sonnets to the dark rise of a nipple alone, the crux of his pyramidalis maddening in its perfection as he curled up towards me, head falling back, the flat planes of his back shifting and stiffening under my hands. His hands fluttered, wandered, seemingly lost and found all at once. From my hips, pulling me firmly to my head, grasping, releasing, tugging me down to be captured by his lips as he gasped into my mouth. We sped and slowed, sped and slowed, prolonging the moment, never shifting our gazes from one another, eyes telling and forgiving a thousand foolish secrets, drawing it out until we could finally do so no longer, shifting into one another, the rug before the fireplace rucking up into confused mounds under our motions, until Holmes' hands clutched frantically at my shoulders, as if he would be thrown away from me, clinging to my form like a lifeline, as he inhaled in one great, last gasp of air.

"_John!_"

He was lost, utterly lost to the moment and so was I, lost to him, his beauty, almost transcendental in that single, shattering moment and as my fingers dug into his collarbone, as I thrust myself against him I closed my eyes, burning that moment forever into the darkness behind them.


End file.
